Senior officer misappropriated funds meant for salaries, procurement at NAF – Witness
Group Captain Ilemona John Ukeh of the 553, B.S Enugu on Monday told a court martial that a senior Air Force officer, Group Captain John Ijudiga, has misappropriated funds meant to pay civilian salaries and for procurement of some items. Ukeh who said that he had over 20 years of experience in investigations added that […]
Group Captain Ilemona John Ukeh of the 553, B.S Enugu on Monday told a court martial that a senior Air Force officer, Group Captain John Ijudiga, has misappropriated funds meant to pay civilian salaries and for procurement of some items.
Ukeh who said that he had over 20 years of experience in investigations added that the senior officer also misappropriated funds meant for club dues to organisations and monies meant for the payment of the teams stipends.
It would be recalled that Daily Trust had reported that the accused had filed an appeal before the court of appeal challenging the jurisdiction of the court martial to hear the case after the court martial had ruled that it had jurisdiction to handle the case.
The case is still pending before the court of appeal but the court has since proceeded with the hearing of the case.
A little drama ensued at the court martial when the defence counsel asked the witness how much of the said funds were misappropriated by the accused for which he answered that he had no exact figure to give the court.
The Defence counsel, Barrister Sunday Adikwu had earlier asked the witness, Group Captain Ukeh to read his investigation report wherein he had recommended that the accused be charged for misappropriation of funds meant to manage the Nigerian Air Force Football team.
In the report, Ukeh said that Group Captain John Ijudiga had on 30th December 2014 requested for the release of N23, 315,700 to be approved for the running of the football team and released instalmentally.
He said that the funds were released quarterly and that N11, 657, 850 were released in the first two quarters to the senior officer, but that the rest of the funds were held back when an alarm was raised that the funds earlier released was not used for the purpose it was meant for.
The witness told the court that the funds were partially used.
He said: "Some persons were not fully paid, though I do not have the actual amount of the funds off hand, if given time I can calculate it".
"I cannot say how much was misappropriated from the N11, 657,850, the senior officer was supposed to pay the team members N10,000, he paid them N5000, while the players who were supposed to get between N20,000 – 25,000 only got N18,000.
He however told the court that the funds released to the accused were supposed to be disbursed at the discretion of the accused so there was no need to interrogate any sub-head but instead the senior officer misappropriated the funds.
He added that he had recommended that further investigation be conducted in the case but noted that a prima facie case was found against the officer.
The members of court martial include Air Commodore Akanbi Raimi Salami, Air Commodore David Aluku, Group Captain Nwokoma Nnamdi Ananaba, Group Captain Edwin Elon, Group Captain Ahmed Abdullahi Shinkafi and flight lieutenant Ahmed Musa Magaji, the judge advocate .